La Reconquista: A Feminist Sera Myu Review

byAnne LeeonSeptember 21, 2013

Hey Moonies! I just got back from my trip to Japan and it was fantastic! I arrived on the evening of September 12th, and the very next day I saw the opening night of La Reconquista. It’s been a week since I’ve seen it–and fair warning, my Japanese is the worst, so I’m not sure how accurate this review will be. However, you may have already read Yosenex’s review, or this absolutely hilarious review by zukarevue, part 1 and part 2. I’ll use their reviews to jog my memory and fill in the blanks.

******SPOILERS AHOY! ********

I arrived at AiiA Theater with several moonies in tow–Brad from moonkitty.net, CyCyn from Sailor Moon Obsession, Yoshimoon and Jadeite2 from the Sailor Moon Forum. While we waited in line, I was able to admire all the cool outfits other fans were wearing–several girls had their hair in odango and one girl was wearing a purple Sailor Moon shirt with a beige tutu. Her hair was dyed lavender and she was wearing a gold star headband. It was so cool! I totally wanted to take a picture, but I was too shy. ^_^;;; We also got to talking with some fans in line. We told them about the changes that were made for the English dub and they were quite shocked! I was also able to play the English opening song for them and one fan commented that it sounded much more dramatic than the Japanese version.

Once in the lobby, I headed straight for the merchandise line. There were several flower arrangements in the lobby and I spotted this:

I died laughing! I didn’t know GACKT was a Sailor Moon fan! Although, now that I look closer, it says “ruuto” on it, so I guess Gackt is a huge fan of the men’s clothing model, ROOT (who played Jadeite).

Here’s my haul! Not very big, eh? I wanted to buy the Luna & Artemis cup as well as the Moon Shining Powder, but they were only selling the pink cup and they were only taking orders for the powder. However, I ended spending over $100 on the merch (3 booklets and 2 cellphones cases) so there’s that! LOL

What was even more amazing about this night was that not only was it opening night, but I was sitting in the FRONT ROW!! I was really concerned that I was going to strain my neck, but as you can see from this picture, the stage was eye level.

The show opened with a musical number by Lemures Baba and the lemures. They were dressed in cute black and white checkered dresses. A sign said “GAME SHOW” in the background–I was little confused, I’m not sure if it was a TV game show or maybe just a demonstration like at a con. Anyway, the guardians come out in their school girl outfits and they play different games on the TVs you see above. One game features the members of Momoiro Clover Z–Yosenex tells me it’s a fortune telling game. Finally, Lemures Baba introduces a new dating sim game called Pandemic Love, which SURPRISE! features the four generals of the Dark Kingdom! They come out a sing a song a la sexy boy band. Mull on that for a second–the Dark Kingdom generals as a boy band! It was awesome.

After everyone exits, Queen Beryl appears. Now I have to say, I was not impressed by the promotional images of Beryl, but seeing her live, on stage–DAYUM. There she was–alone on stage with the lights on her, creating an incredibly eerie feeling. Someone needs to cosplay this version of Beryl like NOWNOWNOWNOWNOW!

Credit: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/81534591.html

After her song, the generals appear and it is explained that they are gathering energy through the dating sim game. They still have not found the silver crystal as well.

In the next scene, Usagi and Mamoru are in the park playing catch. Usagi, as you can imagine, does not throw the ball very well (and would vastly prefer to “catch” Mamoru instead!). Mamoru sings a song about Usagi’s strengths and weaknesses (Usagi is not amused and promptly falls asleep). This is the first time we see Yamato Yuuga, takarazuka exordinaire, take the stage as Mamoru and DAYUM. She sure can act and sing! My only small criticism would be that I’m not sure if she was Mamoru exactly, but she definitely brought out Mamoru’s affectionate, romantic side. It was an absolute honor to see her perform!

The rest of the guardians appear and scold Usagi for wanting to play the dating sim game. She runs off and the Dark Kingdom generals appear as their alter ego boy band, Pandemic Love. The generals promptly start hitting on the guardians and they pair up JUST LIKE THIS MANGA IMAGE. OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!

Credit: sailormoon.wikia.com

In the anime, Jadeite and Kunzite are my favorite generals. In PGSM, it’s Zoicite. But in La Reconquista, Jadeite and Nephrite were my favorites. The actresses just nailed it! I was like, “THAT’S JADEITE! THAT’S NEPHRITE!” They definitely had a manly swagger!

They exit the stage and we see Usagi alone, speaking with Lemures Baba. She eventually reveals herself as a minion of Beryl and attacks, but Usagi can’t transform because the dating sim game has sucked her energy. Tuxedo Mask appears and stops the lemures by throwing a rose (!!!). Afterwards, Tux gives Usagi energy by taking some from the Earth. This was Cycyn’s favorite scene!

Credit: http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/81534591.html

They exit the stage and Sailor Mars, Jupiter and Venus appear IN THE AUDIENCE, fighting Jadeite, Nephrite and Kunzite. They exit and Ami appears on stage, playing the Momoiro Clover Z game on her iphone (the guardians have upgraded to iphones!!). Ami sings a solo song and IT IS BEAUTIFUL. Rei, Minako and Makoto appear in their civilians forms and wonder where Ami is. They try to convince themselves that Ami wouldn’t have been fooled by Zoicite like they were and then BAM! It thunders! THINK AGAIN YOU GUYS.

Meanwhile, Ami and Zoicite are being sugoi cute and Zoicite offers Ami an umbrella. You know, it’s absolutely hilarious that Ami and Zoicite get the spotlight. Out of all the guardian/general couples, I always thought Ami and Zoicite made the least amount of sense, but here, HERE! I’m sold! Although I must say, I had a hard time connecting with Zoicite’s character–the actress was good, but perhaps it’s because Zoicite’s personality is so different in each incarnation–we’ve got a cross dressing dude in the manga, gay dude in the anime, a woman in the English dub, and an emo pianist in PGSM. I’m not sure what Zoicite’s MO is here, but he’s definitely a tragic hero!

Finally, the sailor guardians and Tuxedo Mask arrive, but it’s too late, Ami has been kidnapped and Queen Beryl arrives to take the Silver Crystal. However, like I said, Sailor Moon does not have the crystal, so Queen Beryl demands Tuxedo Mask instead in exchange for the guardians’ lives. He goes with her.

The sailor guardians are bummed, but Queen Serenity appears and sings a song and every sound that comes out of this woman’s mouth is BEAUTIFUL. She tells them to go to the Moon and they sailor teleport outta there. On the moon, they come to a door and a sword in a stone. Only Sailor Jupiter can pull it out. Queen Serenity appears again and explains their past. Meanwhile, back at the Dark Kingdom, Beryl explains to a sleeping Tuxedo Mask her version of events. A glowing red light appears, which is Queen Metallia, who demands the Silver Crystal.

So ends Act 1!

As we settled back down in our seats, white kanji appears on a black screen–I’m not sure what it says, but since the very next scene is the Silver Millenium before The Fall, I’m guessing it read something like “many years ago, on the moon.” So anyways, we’re on the moon, before The Fall. Princess Serenity is in her nighty, who doesn’t know which dress to wear. Mercury follows her around, offering several OMG GOREGOUS dresses, which Serenity refuses. Mercury is also wearing a goregous white dress as are the rest of the guardians–Mercury and Jupiter’s are my favorites. Venus’s is ok, but Mars’ dress has this weird bib-like appendage going on. Regardless, the dresses kinda reminded me of this pic:

Credit: www.angelfire.com

Endymion arrives and Princess Serenity finally appears in her iconic princess dress. Endymion has also arrived with the four generals. The generals pair up with the guardians and dance–Zoicite and Mercury are reluctantly shoved together. Zoicite throws up his hands as if to say, “Whoa! Whoa! We’re just friends!” However, Zoicite does take Mercury aside and tells her that the generals are going to betray Endymion. Which promptly happens and Nephrite slays Zoicite for spilling the beans. (I’m a little miffed that Nephrite is the one doing the slaying, if anyone is slaying anyone, I would imagine it would be Kunzite!)

So, shit is going down and the guardian princesses run off stage and reappear WITH SILVER SWORDS. Let’s take a moment to realize how awesome this imagery is–the inner senshi in long, flowing white dresses are holding SWORDS. It was probably one of my favorite scenes from La Reconquista. (Sakky from Sakky’s Plush N’ Stuff tells me she’s working on fanart of these dresses. Stay tuned!)

So there’s fighting, and of course, Princess Serenity gets in the way, and Endymion takes Beryl’s sword in the back. He dies and Princess Serenity takes his sword and commits suicide a la the manga. Queen Serenity does her thing and sends everyone to the future.

Back in the present, Queen Beryl is wearing a black wedding veil and twittering like a little school girl. Her and Evil Endymion are getting married and Beryl is positively giddy! This is probably the most hilarious scene I’ve ever seen with Beryl.

The sailor guardians finally turn up to ruin the fun. Evil Endymion, being Evil Endymion, ends up choking Sailor Moon and from her tears, the Silver Crystal finally appears. If there was anything I didn’t like about this musical, it would probably be this scene. In the anime, manga and live action show, the Silver Crystal appears after Tuxedo Mask gets hurts trying to save Sailor Moon. In these versions, the crystal appears due to Sailor Moon’s sadness from Tuxedo Mask’s sacrifice. However, in the musical, the crystal appears only when her love becomes violent towards her. I explained my feelings to Brad from moonkitty.net, and he put it this way: “He choked it out of her!” I’m not sure that’s exactly the best way for the most powerful crystal in the universe to appear. :/

Anywho, Evil Endymion tries to get the crystal from Sailor Moon, but she also has the Holy Blade, so she keeps him at bay. The spell on the four generals is broken, and they sacrifice themselves to kill Beryl. Meanwhile, Sailor Moon realizes that she needs to take a memo from Buffy and kill her Evil Boyfriend. Sailor Moon kills Evil Endymion, kisses him on the cheek and then kills herself a la manga, once again.

The guardians promptly freak out and use Sailor Planet Attack on Queen Metallia, but it doesn’t work. Sailor Venus does her leader thing and says they must give up their lives to reawaken Sailor Moon. They do so, but then Queen Metallia swallows Sailor Moon and Endymion.

Inside Queen Metallia, it’s creepy as hell. They are shadows crawling all over the place and there are lemures doing Cirque du Soleil stunts with long red scarves which hang from the ceiling. Moon and Tux awaken and get ready for battle. The Silver Crystal drops from the ceiling in its lotus form (this was Sakky’s favorite part!) and Sailor Moon rises into the air with the Holy Blade. She blasts Metallia with some Moon Power and the world is saved. The guardians even reappear who were revived by the power of the Silver Crystal.

And thus ends La Reconquista! La Soldier was not sung during this performance, but we were treated to a rendition of Moonlight Densetsu by the guardians. As the curtain fell, the cast waved and even crouched down to wave again as the curtain lowered.

I’m so happy I was able to see this in person. I had seen Kaguya Island and the Black Lady musicals online, but as Yosenex said, it’s really not the same. Even you ever have the chance to see a Sailor Moon musical, I totally recommend it!

Finally, I really do think we got a preview of the new anime with this musical. Here are my predictions:

The guardians get iphones

More Silver Millennium

The Four Generals as a Boy Band

Princess dresses!

More death

Ami and Zoicite sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G

More Holy Blade!

Tokyo Sky Tree will replace Tokyo Tower

Do you think anything else will be incorporated from the musical to the new anime?

First of all, congratulations for your trip to Japan. I imagine that watching the musical live it’s truly a wonderful experience. I wasn’t that lucky, but thanks to Nico Nico, I have been able to watch Saturday’s performance. And I must say, I LOVED IT!!! I’d already read some spoilers since day one, searched online for images and I was like, “this is fantastic, guess I’ll have to wait for the DVD to come out”, but I never thought I’d be able to enjoy it sooner (still buying the DVD, though). OMG, the cast is amazing, Yamato-san playing Mamoru is unbelievable (her voice is so beautiful and her acting skills superb), the actresses portraying the shittenou really look like they came out of the manga and make you believe they’re men. The Senshi are so energetic and they show the fantastic chemistry among them. Overall, the story, the songs, the cast, the costumes, I LOVE THEM!!! It would be nice if they continued with the manga storyline in at least four more musicals and with the same cast.

Just so you understand about the flowers, when the opening of a show or a new bar or anything of that nature occurs, it is customary for the people in your circles to send you a big bouquet of congratulatory and well wishing flowers. It is likely that either a director or one of the actresses at some point worked with gackt and t.m. revolution and all those other people that sent flowers at some point in the past. Also the part with Lemures Baba and Usagi is completely improv. In my version she kept talking about how annoying the typhoon was (I went during the typhoon)

(also one final point of contention, this is really a summary and not a review)